Srikanth Narayanan MA (Cantab) MSci MSc MSME/T FRSA
I locate my work at the confluence of relational body psychotherapy, dance/movement and somatic practices, and ecopsychology. My practice is necessarily interdisciplinary. I work in private practice.
I hold the Diploma and the Advanced Diploma in Embodied-Relational Therapy (ERT), a post-graduate training in an approach to relational body psychotherapy. I am certified to practice ERT and am a member of the Embodied-Relational Therapy Association.
I also hold the Diploma in Wild Therapy, a related therapeutic approach within the field of ecopsychology.
Wild Therapy is an established therapeutic approach with practitioners worldwide (http://wild-therapy.co.uk/). More broadly I am glad to be part of the UK ecopsychology community, which, amongst other things, takes me to the Edge of the Wild Gathering.
I am a Full Member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP), accredited by the EABP and listed in the Register of European Body Psychotherapists. Srikanth Narayanan profile.
I have been a member of the UK Body Psychotherapy Network for a number of years. I am on the Steering Group of the UK Body Psychotherapy Network.
I am a member of the British Focusing Association (BFA) and recognised by the BFA as a Focusing Practitioner and Focusing Teacher, and certified by The International Focusing Institute as a Focusing Trainer and Certified Focusing Professional.
I have been a professional member of ISMETA and Registered Somatic Movement Educator since completing the Somatic Movement Education programme in Body-Mind Centering. Since then I have become a Body-Mind Centering Practitioner. Body-Mind Centering (BMC) is an experiential, somatic approach which integrates the anatomical, physiological, psychophysical, and developmental aspects of embodiment. I frame somatic practice, including BMC, as the practice of embodied research, in which we can, with curiosity, float questions within, from which our embodiment provides answers, insights and connections. It is a different attitude to knowing, following the felt sense. I have been offered the ‘Master’ designation in Somatic Movement Education and Therapy, by ISMETA in recognition of my application of this work in psychotherapy and Supervision.
Amongst my many and regular professional development trainings (averaging 50 hours every year), I have trained in the approach to and integration of hypo-response and hypo-arousal into psychotherapeutic practice (in courses offered by Merete Holm Brantbjerg and Kolbjørn Vårdal). Integrating this with my other trainings and practices leads me to work, in all I do, in the space between proprioception and interoception, which I consider to be a ‘transitional space’ (Winnicott, 1971), from which experiencing yields new conscious awareness, creativity, growth and integration (of outside and inside, of self and other), deepening relational possibilities in meeting the reality of others and the world.
Amongst the recent highlights of my CPD was a training I undertook from Dr Terry Marks-Tarlow: ‘Clinical Intuition: Local, Nonlocal, and Neurodynamics’, a landmark in research, integration and practice.
And, I am pleased to be a member of The Relational School. And proud to be a Fellow of the RSA.
I am a graduate of the Centre for Supervision and Team Development training. And I hold the Certificate in Supervision.
My practice also draws significantly from my training in the Discipline of Authentic Movement and humanistic and psychodynamic counselling, as well as my longstanding engagement with contemplative practice, dance, improvisation, drama, performance, creative practice and my own psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
I continue to be intrigued by the possibilities that curiosity, creativity and artistic sensibilities can offer a therapeutic process.
My approach to practice is that it is always an enquiry. My trainings have, above all, offered me skills that allow me to rest in a position of not knowing, so that I can be curious about the unexpected and receptive to what is emerging. I value the potential for learning through every encounter in life, be that with other humans or the other-than-human.
I value therapeutic and supervisory practice as endeavours in themselves as well as ones that have the potential to deepen and extend (practice-based) research in these fields.
In all aspects of my life I am committed to finding ways to work with nature rather than against it. As well as connecting to the nature that is my bodily being, an important part of my practice is to nurture my connection to the land (see also Our Relationship With the Land). It is through the earth that I feel more profoundly that I am embodied.
Acknowledging this felt connection helps me honour my wholeness, witness my relatedness and celebrate the spontaneous dance of living in all it brings. It offers a path of healing and integration which, for me, is both personal and political – as our bodily experiences are all too easily marginalised, and the land all too easily exploited, embodiment becomes a form of activism.